The poor economy and insufficient advertising support will mean some major changes for the Enterprise weekly newspapers in south Snohomish and north King counties.
The Shoreline/Lake Forest Park Enterprise will print its last edition Oct. 28, and the editions serving Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace will be combined into a single, larger paper Nov. 4, publisher Allen Funk announced Tuesday.
“In this economy we had to make the difficult decision to reallocate resources,” Funk said. “We decided we couldn’t continue to go into Shoreline and Lake Forest Park.”
The Lynnwood-based Enterprise is part of the family of publications operated by The Herald. It started the Shoreline weekly in April 1995 and bought the south county Enterprise publications 18 months later.
Funk said he hopes to help someone step in and produce a weekly paper to fill the gap. He said the Enterprise “couldn’t afford to continue to serve all the communities, and Shoreline was the one that didn’t fit well.”
Located in King County, Shoreline has a different county government, different school district and different shopping patterns, Funk said. The publication is delivered to about 20,000 people.
Funk said there are no plans at this point to reduce the number of employees at the Enterprise. “We already run a fairly slim operation,” he said.
He plans to refocus Enterprise resources to produce one expanded edition for the four south county communities. The paper, typically from 12 to 16 pages, will be expanded by two to six pages based on advertising, Funk said.
He hopes to distribute the paper to an additional 9,000 to 10,000 households in the coming months, shifting its readership from about 75 percent of the population closer to 100 percent.
The paper will continue to be distributed by adults paid by the newspaper and by youth carriers who will collect $2 a month from customers. Funk said the new weekly should be delivered to all communities on Wednesday. The previous editions were delivered each Wednesday and Thursday.
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